Becoming Better Theologians (part 25)

Our Father we come before you this morning just rejoicing. That you would love such as us that you would send your son to die in our place Lord as we gather here this morning and just pray that it would be a time of blessing to those who are here and a time of glorification For you that you would be glorified in what we do today that we would be Honoring of you in every way father bless this time as we look to your word in Christ's name.

Amen. Well last week I said a lot of confusing things. But I want to I want to I'm gonna straighten all that out every single thing I said that was curvy it will be straightened today. But first I have to ask you What is the?

What is the significance of Friday to most most of us? Friday is the end of the workweek. What else? Jesus died on Friday. How about It's a day to go to mosque. That's the the day that Muslims worship.

And I decided it was really curious. I You know, I'm always looking for something that kind of start Sunday morning off and it struck me as really curious. There's a brand new book out and It's called Every day a Friday.

Every day a Friday. Anybody know who wrote that book? I Didn't even know about that book until today I was like every day a Friday. I mean, I would think that a Christian author would write something like Every day is the Lord's Day Every day a Sunday every day a worship day Every day a Friday.

I Mean, it's kind of sounds disco ish. I don't even get it every day a Friday your best life now every day a Friday. Eat drink to be merry for tomorrow. We die. I'm Joel Osteen. Okay, actually that was a really terrible name for a book unless you know, you're not a Christian I Don't know just odd very odd.

The Land Promise and Joshua 21

Okay last week Talking about Israel owning land. And some astute observers in the class. Namely my wife who's sick Steve Proulx who is not sick that I know Pointed to Joshua. So let's turn to Joshua. You know, I have a hobby.

It's Unfolding the folded pages of my Bible. I hate that Joshua 21 verses 43 to 45 and when somebody read that place.

Bruce and there you have it. Israel possessed all the land. Steve is wrong.

And furthermore someone astutely pointed out even John MacArthur agrees that Steve is wrong. Listen in the authorized version the notes it says here. This sums up God's fulfillment of his covenant promise to give Abraham's people the land.

Boom. Steve's wrong. I don't know what to say. I Didn't learn anything in seminary. Apparently. Oh keep reading. God also kept his word in giving his people rest in a valid sense. The Canaanites were in check under military conquest as God had pledged.

Not posing an immediate threat. Period. Not every enemy had been driven out. However living leaving some to stir up trouble later. But God's people failed to exercise their responsibility and possess their land to the full degree in various areas.

Maybe Steve's not completely wrong. Let's listen to some other Commentaries here. This is from the New American commentary basically written by Southern Baptists these verses emphasize the totality of Israel's success the overarching picture of complete victory and the all-encompassing nature of God's faithfulness.

To his promises and his people it is of a piece with similar passages such as blah blah blah. It does not echo the passages that stand in tension with it which speaks of listen unfinished business of lands that remain to be captured.

Yet on its own terms does present an accurate picture of the prevailing situation at the time. Another man says this this is John Wolvard Formerly president of Dallas seminary. He says it's the unfaithfulness of it of Israel.

In other words in not driving out all their enemies and not possessing all the land in no way impugned the faithfulness of God. So what Walvoord is essentially saying is. This passage is talking about the faithfulness of God.

We could talk about the sovereignty of God and then we have the responsibility of man and that's what we're talking about here. This is the sovereignty of God the faithfulness of God and in contrast with the faithlessness of Israel.

Some theologians Walvoord goes on to say. I've insisted that the statement in Joshua 2143 means the land promise of the Abrahamic Covenant was fulfilled then but this cannot be. This cannot be true because later the Bible gives additional predictions about Israel possessing the land after the time of Joshua for example Amos 9 verses 14 and 15.

And then he says. Joshua 2143 therefore refers to the extent of the land as outlined in Numbers 34 and not the ultimate extent as would be in the Messianic Kingdom. Yada Yada Yada. Now let's uh, just let's turn to one verse that he mentions in particular Walvoord does.

Let's look at Genesis 17 8. Genesis 17 is a One of the restatements of the Abrahamic Covenant. I mean God Made a Covenant with Abraham with Abram originally in Genesis 12 amplified it and really executed it in Genesis 15 and then restated it a few times and Let's just pick up the context here in Genesis 17 verse 1 when Abram.

Not yet. Abraham was 99 years old. Still no child, right? The Lord appeared to Abram and said to him I am God Almighty. Walk before me and be blameless that I may make my covenant between me and you and may multiply you greatly.

Then Abram fell on his face and God said to him behold My covenant is with you and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.

I will make you exceedingly fruitful and I will make you into nations and kings shall come from you and I will establish my covenant between Me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant.

To be God to you and to your offspring after you and I will give to you and to your offspring. After you the land of your sojournings all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession and I will be their God.

Notice anything there? Everlasting possession kind of stands out to me.

Brian right father of nations plural and.

So, I mean we could view that in a number of ways but I think ultimately if we if we just focus on the land for a moment because that's the Issue that we're looking at if we look at the land and we say it's gonna going to be an eternal possession.

Well, we know from approximately I Think no, I didn't look this up so I could be wrong, but I think it's about 130 a .d Mentioned it before the Roman Caesars the Emperor's there they had this constant trouble in Israel and.

And It was in 70 ad that the Jews rebelled I Think it was about 66 ad actually, but they the Romans sent in their troops their legions and they besieged Jerusalem and they conquered it and what do they do in 70 ad they destroyed the temple.

Now you you would think you know for most of us and we at the center of our religion have been destroyed and We You know, we just been whooped up on by the Romans that we would just kind of settle down.

That didn't really happen in Israel. Because it was about 130 ad they started another rebellion. They didn't really like this whole and Rightfully not they didn't like the whole polytheistic culture of the Romans.

They didn't like, you know having to in in one way or another acknowledge Roman rule, so they rebelled again in a 130 ad I believe was Hadrian Sent in the legions again, and they didn't just destroy Jerusalem this time.

What did they do any students of history? They took all the Jews out of the land and What else do they do. This place is no longer gonna be called Israel. It's gonna be called Palestine. Palestine I mean you want to know where the whole Palestinian Israeli conflict starts it starts right there because Before that it wasn't called Palestine.

It was called Canaan or it was called Israel, but it was not called Palestine. They renamed the place Palestine. They dispersed the Jews all over the place because they're like, you know what we're not gonna have any more rebellions and the only way to Make sure that we don't have any more rebellions is move them out.

So from 130 ad. Until 1948 there was no nation at all called Israel didn't exist and Even in 1948 again for those of you who've studied history what happened in 1948 it really began. Yes, Bruce Balfour Declaration was before that but yes.

They fulfilled basically the Balfour Declaration this idea that the United Nations was going to give Israel the the Jews a homeland in light of the Holocaust and everything else and but the borders were pretty unique.

You know to say the least because it really was not you know, it kind of looked like some of our congressional districts, you know kind of and it just kind of. If you've ever looked at that either those maps anyway, so the point is they didn't possess the land for What?

1 ,800 years. They weren't in any part of it. And even now they don't have the full extent of the land. So when we see everlasting possession to me, I don't know call me old-fashioned. But everlasting if you look at the Hebrew everlasting has a unique meaning.

It means everlasting As impermanent so I I don't know how we can say that. Another commentator says the this is From the expositors Bible commentary says it emphasizes God's sovereign action. The land was God's gift to Israel God's oath to Abraham.

Cetera cetera. And Finally one last guy says this he says already in Joshua chapter 13 verses 1 to 7 God highlights the incomplete conquests of the land. Commentators have traditionally stressed the difference between God's faithfulness and the people's lack of faithfulness.

Thus Kyle and Delic who wrote a very Complete Old Testament commentary. They quote Calvin. John Calvin said this. It is right to distinguish well between the clear unwavering and certain fidelity of God in the prompt and the fulfillment of his promises and the Weakness and indolence of the people which caused the blessings of God to slip from their hands.

Consequently, though they did not destroy them all so as to empty the land for their own possession the truth of God stood out as Distinctly as if they had for there would have been no difficulty in their Accomplishment of all that remained to be done if they had only been disposed to grasp the victories that were already That were ready to their hand.

I mean we see this time and time again where? The the Jews just failed to Take the victory that that God had provided for them. So Anyway, that's the land Issue the promises thereof. And I have to apologize to everybody because my wife told me this morning, you know, since she's sick.

She said you can't say anything interesting this morning. So I apologize ahead of time. All right one more issue and then we'll then we'll get into. We're never gonna finish all this today. I brought so much stuff I mean I was home sick yesterday and I was just reading stuff all day long.

So we're just it's like, you know potpourri for mm. All right we talked about our need for the righteousness of Christ last week also and and I did this in the context of covenantal and covenantal theology and Dispensational theology and I'm gonna get to that in just a minute because somebody said to me this week.

They said, okay now I'm really confused because I just want to know whether we're covenantal or dispensational. So we're gonna be handing out t-shirts this week that say, you know Covenantal on the front and dispensational on the back.

We're a covenantal dispensationalist. Thank you. People look at you and think that that doesn't make any sense. I I just if we get into the extremes of both camps, I mean how many of you. Maybe we should had have every eye closed before we say this.

How many of you have read? Or seen the movie the the left behind series. I just absolutely, you know, I thankfully I was in seminary when those came in and I absolutely refused to read them. My wife read them issues just like she goes, you know.

They're really neat until the last few where it was like, you know, it covered 45 minutes of the you know tribulation. Talk about milking the series. I mean the best thing about him was I really do think they were.

Because unbelievers were reading them as well. They were an opportunity to talk about Christ. But you know, I mean, I think there's an excess on the one side and then I think there may be Excesses on the other side the covenantal side too.

And so we'll talk about that a little bit, but let's open our Bibles to Romans 4 Roger Nicole who once preached in this church. Can you believe that? How many were here when Roger Nicole preached? I see no hands.

Okay, so I guess it was a long time ago Charlie was here, but I think he was probably tuning his guitar. Yeah, do you remember that at all Roger Nicole is you know now in heaven and has perfect theology.

He had pretty good theology. Anyway, so He wrote an article a few years ago and he says That there's a there's a movement right now and we've talked about it a little bit. I mean, it's been going on for the last 10 years or so Kind of pushed by a man named NT Wright Who is an Anglican?

Bishop in that means he's with the Church of England or the Episcopalian Church and His base of the thrust of his position is the perfect obedience of Christ To the Mosaic law does not but does not apply to those who believe in him because we don't Really need it per se and that's not the issue that Paul was ever addressing.

Now according to the Reformed understanding of Scripture the active obedience of Christ is Imputed to justified believers as their positive cover in the last judgment now I want to analyze that for just a minute before we go to Romans 4 verses 3 to 24.

What does it mean? That Christ's active obedience is imputed to justified believers. First of all, what does that mean? Pam. He kept the law on our behalf. What he did is Reckoned to us. It's from the Greek word lugged luggage of my and.

And and now to that last part there as their positive cover in the last judgment. It's counted to believers as their positive cover in the last judgment. Well, what's the last judgment? I'm sorry. Great wide throne you stand before Christ and You know, are you going to heaven or not?

Why would we need a positive cover Charlie it is alien. So I like that cover idea because it's not inherent in us. It is external. It is not belonging to us. It is appropriated to us. It is our covering.

That would be a great way to Talk about Christ's righteousness. So there's our covering. And so that when we are judged on the final day, we don't get judged on our own merits. How much we had left in the Treasury of merit, but I digress.

But it's on Christ's merit his perfection his perfect obedience. That's why we get to go to heaven now. Let's read Romans 4 3 to 24. And would someone like to read that please. Charlie yes. Okay. Now, did you see a word that was repeated?

I don't know how many times in there. Counted, you know, I mean it was counted counted counted counted counted counted counted and it's it's that verb legitimized reckoned some translations have it and it's that idea of Imputation, you know that things were transferred to our account even though we didn't do it.

And it's again interesting right in the beginning. And this is a theme that is just repeated over and over again. It's pretty hard to miss. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness and then it goes on to say that if Basically if it was that belief if it was self-generated or works.

Then he would have something to boast about right it says now to the one who works his wages are not counted as a gift. But as his do in other words if he generated his own faith. Then he would have earned something.

He would have merited something, but he didn't he didn't deserve anything, but hell. Any more than anybody else? Nicole says this he says what is credited is not the believers good work in obedience to God's law.

Not even his faith is meritorious. But one is justified by grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ justified by grace through Faith we would say but that faith is not of our own, right?

So that we don't have anything to boast of and that is just completely different than the Arminian view. Nicole also says this he says. You know against the idea that maybe you want to. If you're just justified you could do whatever you want then you can sin.

He says if Christians are viewed by God as covered with the righteousness of Christ it is urged. It does not matter what sins they may commit says this is a travesty of justification a Position that would achieve impunity and forget that our Savior suffered and died for our sins is the very reverse of what God teaches.

Everywhere if someone asserts that faith in Christ opens the door to sinning it is obvious that faith is not alive, but dead. But anyway that the key point there is it is reckoned to us Christ. Righteousness is reckoned or counted to us and that it's on that basis that we Are declared just and are allowed to enter heaven.

So that's the act of obedience. It's his perfect obedience to the law. I mentioned this before but you know the clearest example he obeyed his mother and a father he He never violated any part of the law and We have to have perfection.

Matthew 548 says we have to be perfect enter into the kingdom of heaven. And so he achieved that on our behalf. So that's that. Now Getting back to this whole covenantal ism versus Dispensationalism and I want to just go to a passage that I've mentioned before but we're gonna deal with it a little bit more this morning.

Revelation chapter 20 and I've got Zillion different takes on this which I think you might find interesting. But this is this is I mean to me this is very clear-cut but that's because I'm me I'm not as smart as some of these guys.

Starting in verse 1 then I saw an angel Coming down from heaven Holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain and he sees the dragon The ancient serpent who is the devil and Satan and bound him for a thousand years and Threw him into the pit and shut it and sealed it over him.

So that he might not deceive the nation's any longer until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be released for a little while now. All that to say and I'm gonna be naming names and and Whatnot because there are some men in here that I just you know, if if you've ever heard me quote anyone.

And I think I probably quoted Simon Kistemacher as much as I've quoted anybody and you know in any Message or anything that I've ever said and what do you hear what he says about that passage? I still love him, but Just those three verses.

Now This is from the expositors commentary man named AF Johnson. He says Charles a commentator has described this passage as. Listen it seemed pretty simple. But listen as a constant source of Insurmountable difficulty for the exegete in other words the people who go and study this it is hopelessly confusing.

Burkhardt great European theologian Has called the Millennium one of the most controversial and intriguing questions of eschatology he feels that one's view of Revelation 20 is Internally connected with the rest of one's eschatology.

In other words how you interpret those three verses. Will flavor will color everything else that you believe about end times. While the Old Testament and later Jewish literature pointed forward to a time when the kingdom of God would be manifest in the world.

Nowhere in Jewish literature is the time of the reign of the Messiah stated to be a thousand years. And he goes on to say the exegesis of the passage leads me to a premillennial interpretation. He says the duration of the reign of Christ, which is equal to the duration of the binding of Satan.

Let's look at that again Revelation chapter 20. He's going to be in verse 2. He's going to be bound for a thousand years. And then let's read on to verse 4. Then I saw thrones and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed.

Also, I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus for the Word of God. And those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands.

They came to life and reigned with Christ For a thousand years. So this man says Satan's bound for a thousand years. Christ reigns for a thousand years and those two things are The it's the same period of time.

Says the main problem concerns whether a reference to a Millennium indicates an earthly historical reign of peace that will manifest itself at the close of this present age in other words a Premillennial kingdom we're living in the time before the Millennium the Millennium the thousand-year reign of Christ is yet to come.

Or whether the whole passage is symbolic of some present experience of Christians. Okay, in other words the kingdom is present now the pre the kingdom of Christ is present now. Satan is bound now because those two things are simultaneous.

Or whether the whole passages. Or whether some future Non-historical reality. And this is what tears these theologians up says the ancient church to end the time of Augustine and Unquestionably held to the teaching of an earthly Historical reign of peace that was to follow the defeat of Antichrist and the physical resurrection of the Saints.

But to precede both the judgment and the new creation. So it was pre mill. Then there was a late 4th century interpreter Tychonius Dependent on anybody know he was dependent on the allegorical interpretation of origin.

Anybody know who origin is? Origin was a very brilliant theologian for his time 4th century AD, but he He sort of took things literally when when they shouldn't be taken literally and Harry's laughing He took things literally when maybe they shouldn't have been taken.

So literally and the allegorized when maybe they shouldn't have been allegorized. Jesus said, you know if your right hand caused you to stumble Cut it off origin apparently had some difficulties and so he Mutilated himself.

So that he wouldn't sin in a particular area. He took the Word of God seriously didn't want to sin but I would say that's probably an external thing that you know didn't really change his heart, but be that as it may but he his school of thinking this kind of Allegorization really caught hold.

What do I mean by allegorization. How do you take something and turn it into an allegory. There are many examples I could give. I mean, I I know that some people this is this part is at least interesting to me.

Jonah we look at it we say well that's a real person who lived in real time and really disobeyed the Lord and the Lord overrode his choices and Blessed anyway, well a lot of people take the story of Jonah as a story.

It's an allegory you know what not to do and of course the official Catholic position on that is. They don't have a position. But a more common use of allegory for example would be in parables. Historically parables have been distorted something fiercely.

You know it the parable of the Good Samaritan instead of Jesus making the point about Serving and who's your neighbor and all this it turned into this huge thing about well the the Samaritan man is this and the road is this and it all these different symbols were imported into it until you really couldn't tell what it meant and that's this allegorization school of thinking and so this is what eventually crept into the interpretation of Revelation and including Revelation chapter 20 and Listen to this.

This has become I think probably the prevailing thought in reformed circles. This is the prevailing thought that the binding of Satan Had already taken place in that the devil cannot seduce the church during the present age.

So Satan is bound right now that would be the covenantal all mill historical Position and I'm gonna kind of go a little faster here through this. You say thankfully. Okay, let me see. Let me make sure I've got the name right here who this is.

I Don't so it doesn't matter okay? Why the Millennium? There are at least four answers to this question during the Millennium. This is from a pre mill view. Christ will openly manifest his kingdom in world history.

In other words, it's not some secret spiritual kingdom. That's somehow taking place right now. The Millennium will provide an actual demonstration of the truthfulness of the divine witness born by Christ and his followers during their life on earth.

It will be a time of the fulfillment of all God's covenant promises to his people. All his covenant promises to his people. We read Genesis 17 8 earlier where God says to Abraham I will give your People the land or your descendants the land as what an eternal possession forever and ever and ever.

So that will happen that will take place during the Millennium. The Millennium secondly will reveal that man's rebellion against God lies deep in man's own heart. Not in the devil's deception. Why. Because he's gonna be bound for a thousand years, right.

Not able to save anyone and yet people are still going to ultimately rebel. This is third point the release of Satan after the Millennium shows the invulnerability of the City of God and the extent of the authority Of Christ since the devil is immediately defeated and cast into the lake forever.

The Millennium fourthly will serve as long period. Required to do the general housecleaning. I don't really go for that one. But anyway, it's kind of kind of interesting. But this is another historical position.

Some have interpreted the binding of Satan as The work of Christ in the lives of believers. In other words, he's bound In your life. He can no longer deceive you if you're a believer. I don't know if I can go for that and then they refer to mark 3.

Let's go to mark 3 27. I've heard this applied to this idea. Mark 3 27, but no one can enter a strongman's house and plunder his goods unless he binds the strongman. Thus that is proof that Satan has been now.

That's kind of proof texting here. Here's what I here's a basic problem. I think with hermeneutics. With the way we study scripture the way we interpret scripture. I think you have a real Issue any time that you want to take?

Your first step is cross-reference. Why why is that a problem. You take it out of context immediately now if your interpretation. For example, you're reading one passage and you say wow. Boy, it seems like we're free to sin.

I'm just throwing it as you know an example. Well, then your understanding of other scriptures can come into play and you go. Oh, wait a minute. I must not have that right because the Word of God doesn't contradict itself.

So maybe I need to go back into the context but what you cannot do is say well, you know I think in mark 3 27 it means this so therefore I'm gonna cut and paste my understanding of 3 27 and move that to Revelation 20.

You can't do that. Our goal when we study the Bible is what we want to cut it straight. We want to get right and what does that mean? That means driving back to authorial? Intent. We want to know what the original author the Holy Spirit the original author the human author what they had in mind.

What we don't want to do is get caught up in some preset system wherein we feel free to take the words of Paul and To use that to influence John or the words of Mark and influence John or the words of John to influence Luke.

We just don't want to do that. That's one of the problems to people fall into this trap. There's another one. You know da Carson refers to it in one of his books the fallacy of word study. What a given word means?

You know in different places. Doesn't necessarily matter. There are words in our English language that we would only if they can have a variety of meanings and They're really all that matters is what does it mean in the given context same thing in the Greek?

If it if a word can have seven different meanings and you say well, you know 98 of the time it means X therefore here it means X. Might not be the case you need to know what it means in context. And so we always want to get back to the context now listen to what he says here about Mark.

Chapter 3 says. But does the reference in Mark? Provide a true analogy for the binding of Satan in Revelation 20 verses 1 to 3 and this is what Augustine. Augustine Augustine claimed a careful examination of Mark chapter 3.

Verse 27 in Revelation 21 to 3 leads to the conclusion that the two passages are not teaching the same truth. There is a sense in which according to the gospel account Satan is in the process of being bound By the activity of Christ in the kingdom of God but this is clearly an event different from the total consigning of Satan to the abyss as Taught in Revelation 20 verses 1 to 3 and I'm gonna I'm gonna skip now to one of my professors.

Dr. Thomas. This one he says he says the only way One could view Satan as bound before a time in the future. In other words, the only way you could see him bound now Would be to construe his binding as a restriction of his activity.

Not a cessation of it. In other words that he's somehow restricted. He's hobbled. He's handicapped and can't fully exercise everything He'd like to do right now and that that's what it's talking about in Revelation chapter 20.

Dr. Thomas goes on to say though that it is the uniform Testimony of the New Testament that Satan is not bound during the period between Christ to advents when you see that what is an advent? Coming right his appearances his first advent when he was born a second advent when he returns a second coming a further problem for a view that this paragraph Recapitulates the present era is its inability to explain Satan's release at the end of the Millennium now.

That is a real problem. Why is that a problem for a non literal interpretation of Revelation chapter 20? Charlie yeah, I mean if you want to take it that way sure. Yeah, if you just say that he he cannot deceive believers anymore, and then he's loose now.

They can deceive believers. Yep, that would be a problem. I like I like how Thomas phrases this he says What restrictions currently placed on him will be removed at the end of this age. In other words if you're gonna say that he's bound.

But that doesn't mean that he's literally bound and tied up and immobile and not able to do anything. It just means that he's restricted. He's no longer able to deceive people the same way others explain it this way that The binding of Satan is merely the fact that the gospel now is free to be preached everywhere.

It's no longer restricted the Jews, but it gets to go to the entire world. And he says again what restrictions placed on him now will be removed at the end of this age. And he says no credible answer to this question has ever been advanced.

Even proponents of some form of recapitulation concur that their view does not rest primarily on exegesis of particular texts. But on the analogy of faith and analogy of faith is what I was saying earlier, it's this idea that There are other passages that seem to talk about the same idea.

So you take your understanding of those passages and then you put them there now is it wrong as I said? It's not wrong to use analogy of faith or some people call it cross-referencing. However, you want to look at it but if you are to make a list a hierarchical list of hermeneutics.

How you come down to the right understanding of a particular passage your first thing that you want to look at is what Immediate context and then you want to go, you know, like let's say it still doesn't make sense.

Maybe you're in first Peter. Well, you can now you can still look within the book of first Peter and try to understand what he's saying. That would be better and then you maybe even go into Peter's other writings and his other sermons and try to understand it that would be Better than just going.

Okay. Now I'm gonna go to Genesis or now I'm gonna go wherever to kind of verify my theory. The binding this is Thomas again, the binding and imprisonment of Satan will not be limited to believers as the language of 20 and 20 20 verses 1 to 3 says he says what not able or he's gonna be not able to deceive the Nations in other words the whole world so it's not just the believers.

Now mounts says this Says careful attention needs to be given to the text of Revelation itself. All the text actually says is that during a period designated as a thousand years Satan is bound and cast into the abyss.

Which is then locked and sealed the purpose of the confinement is not to punish him but to prevent him from deceiving the nation's. The elaborate measures taken to to ensure his custody are most easily understood as implying the complete cessation of his influence on earth rather than a curbing of his activities.

The abyss is sealed as a special precaution against escape. In other words, he says if you just read it normally if you employ what pastor Mike calls the plumbers hermeneutic. You would never come to some kind of Convoluted understanding of it.

Grant Osborne. He says this chapter is Difficult primarily because of the debate over the Millennium that has consumed far too much energy through the centuries now. You know what? I would agree with him on that.